An American Fantasy: Imagining a Colored Paris in An American in Paris

For moviegoers today, color on screen feels almost invisible. It is so ordinary as the real life that we rarely pause to notice it. But in a century earlier, when Hollywood was stepping into its golden age, color on screen was anything but ordinary. Due to technological limitations, economic considerations, and aesthetical conventions, most films were still shot in black-and-white. As Technicolor innovated their color mechanisms, several film genres tend to utilize them more than others. Among them were film musicals. 

An American in Paris (1951), directed by Vincente Minnelli, starring Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron, is one of the most significant examples of this tendency. Produced by MGM, the film was a commercial and critical success. It won six Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Known for its highly stylized use of color, An American in Paris utilized color not merely as a technological innovation, but also as a crucial aesthetic device for constructing distinct visual experiences for its audience.

After World War II, Paris increasingly became an object of American imagination. The city existed less as a political reality, which was struggling with its post-war reconstruction, than as a cultural dream place. Paris was an elegant old-world destination with art, romance, and a fine alternative to the American routine. In advertisements, it was promoted as a "destination of the elite, and as the world capital of high fashion and art" (McKenzie 38). Meanwhile, actual American tourism to Europe expanded rapidly during that period, especially among middle-class travelers, due to the development of tourism programs and tourist-class airfares (McKenzie 41). With all these promotions and imaginations, Paris felt both familiar and exotic for American tourists. It was a city they already knew a lot about through art, stories, and images, yet one that promised a richer and much more different experience if they were to visit it in person. Long before they arrived in Paris, they had already begun to imagine what Paris was like. 

In An American in Paris, this sense of fantasy is essential. The film does not attempt to reproduce post-war Paris as it actually was. In fact, most of the scenes were even not shot in Paris at all, but on stylized sets constructed in Hollywood studios, as the filmmakers drew on the visual language of French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painters. Rather than realism, the film presents a version of Paris that seems to exist only in Technicolor. The difference between the black-and-white and color images is not just about aesthetics. Beyond that, it marks a shift from realism to fantasy.

To dive deeper into the visual experience of An American in Paris and feel what it is like to step into a colorful, intentionally unreal Paris, we will focus on how the film uses color. We will look at three key moments of this film, each offering a different way color shapes identity, community and what it means to be an “American” in Paris. These stops include the introduction of Jerry and Lise, the “I Got Rhythm” number in the middle of the film, and the final ballet. As we explore these scenes, we will also bring together the postwar context, when growing American tourism, consumer culture, and a sense of middle-class optimism are reflected in the film’s color design. Through its use of color, the film constructs an idealized vision of postwar American identity, turning Paris into a symbolic landscape where U.S. presents its optimism and global confidence.